In Bihar polls, RJD alleges lack of security for Tejashwi; writes to EC on 'ugly scenes'

As the first phase of the Bihar elections kicked-off on Wednesday, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) alleged that there was 'highly inadequate security arrangement' made for Mahagatbandhan CM face Tejashwi Yadav at his rallies.

RJD spokesperson Manoj Kumar Jha, on Thursday, said that inadequate security at Tejashwi Yadav's rallies had resulted in 'anti-social elements' causing 'immense trouble and ugly scenes' at the meetings and that despite making repeated requests to the Election Commission, the security had not been beefed up. 

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RJP spokesperson Manoj Jha took to Twitter to share the letter written to the EC on 25 October requesting TV channels to not air the rallies planned on 28 October in order to maintain to ensure 'level-playing field' and to not 'adversely impact the idea of free and fair elections'. 

RJD's request for more security comes after Tejashwi Yadav faced issues with the crowd during his rally at Lakhisarai on Sunday. As per reports, the police had to use lathi-charge to disperse the crowd following which Tejashwi Yadav's rally was completed. Moreover, Tejashwi Yadav targeted CM Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government in the rally, holding him responsible for the unruly crowd in the RJD rally. 

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Mahagathbandhan's manifesto

Mahagathbandhan Chief Ministerial face Tejashwi Yadav had earlier released the joint manifesto of Mahagathbandhan and said that the main agenda of the Mahagathbandhan government will be to provide employment and stop the migration of people due to the unavailability of jobs. He reiterated his promise of providing 10 lakh jobs by signing the process in his first cabinet meeting if he is elected as the CM. Among other things, the manifesto promises to bring a law that can annul the three farm laws passed by Parliament recently and states that the Mahagathbandhan government will not treat "protesters or those criticising the government as traitors" and will not name them in false cases. Similar promises have been made in RJD's manifesto also. 

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Bihar elections

The Bihar Assembly has a strength of 243 members out of which 38 seats are reserved for SC and two for ST. In the 2015 state polls, the Mahagatbandhan comprising RJD, JD(U) and Congress won a whopping majority with 178 seats under the leadership of Nitish Kumar. On the other hand, the BJP-led alliance won from only 58 constituencies. On July 26, 2017, Nitish Kumar stepped down as the CM citing irreconcilable differences with RJD over corruption allegations against Tejashwi Yadav and joined hands with its former ally BJP.

The other two phases of the Bihar election are on November 3 and November 7. The EC has announced that 7 lakh hand sanitizers, 46 lakh masks, 6 lakh PPE kits, 6.7 lakh face shields and 23 lakh pairs of hand gloves have been arranged for the election. To observe the COVID-19 prevention norms, each polling booth will have less than 1000 voters. To decongest polling stations further, the voting time has been increased by one hour. Thus, people will be able to cast their votes from 7 am to 6 pm barring for the areas affected by Left-wing extremism. The counting of votes will take place on November 10. 

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